Voluntary Selective Social Distancing . March 26, 2020

Copyright © 2020                               John F. Oyler

March 26, 2020

Voluntary Selective Social Distancing

These certainly are unique times. Who could have predicted the complete suspension of all major sporting events, the transition of education from classroom to on-line, the proliferation of working-at-home, and the disappearance of toilet paper from the super market shelves?

I must admit I agree with the logic of “social distancing”. Certainly, minimizing the contact between individuals will dramatically reduce the rapid transmission of this frightening virus, hopefully enough that our existing medical facilities will be able to adequately care for all of us who are infected.

The emphasis on washing one’s hands frequently reminded me of the social onus years ago of “dishpan hands”, and the series of Palmolive ads featuring Madge, the manicurist designed to eliminate them.

My children are concerned with my fragility and are encouraging me to “hunker down” and wait out the storm. At this point I appear to be well stocked for at least the next few weeks. The contents of my freezer include one serving of salmon, three Italian sausages, three Trader Joe’s “steak and stout pies”, three slices of ham, four Vegetarian “burgers”, four Vegetarian sausages, and enough frozen vegetables and potatoes to provide me with eighteen dinners.

I hope I can replenish my meat and fish stock before I get into the Vegetarian items. They are there for my grand-daughter Rachael. I admire her commitment to healthy cuisine, but do not envy it. After all I did try to eat one of the burgers – its taste was somewhere between corrugated cardboard and Styrofoam.

I am committed to self-quarantine for the near future. So far I have missed one lunch with Don Toney, my semi-monthly brunch with my high school friends, the second Osher class on Johann Sebastian Bach at the local library, a Pittsburgh Symphony concert (Brahms’ First Symphony), and a Civil War lecture in Carnegie.

Unfortunately other folks have suffered more severely. Rachael was looking forward to participating in two major concerts, both of which have been cancelled. First was a “Side by Side” concert at Heinz Hall where youth musicians are paired with members of the Pittsburgh Symphony. Even more disappointing is her trip to Carnegie Hall in New York City with the Three Rivers Young Peoples Orchestra; we were planning to go along as well.

There is concern that self-quarantined folks will quickly get “cabin fever”. Fortunately the weather has broken and I permit myself to take my walks in the woods, morning and afternoon, as long as I take along my walking stick to ensure that I maintain a safe (six feet?) distance from anyone I encounter.

The University has extended Spring Break a week so instructors can work out the logistics of conducting courses on-line from their homes. I am envious of them – it would be great fun to have the challenge of figuring out how to accomplish that. My daughter Elizabeth disagrees with me; she is in the midst of doing just that for two courses and doesn’t consider it fun.

It isn’t clear yet how we will handle Senior Design. It is a particularly difficult course to handle on-line. However the experience of sorting this out may be very advantageous to our students, as it may well be a precursor to the way they will cooperate in projects once they enter the “real world”.

I share Elizabeth’s concern that society may see on-line education, also called “distance learning” as a low-cost alternative to our conventional approach, which profits from the face-to face dialogue between students and teacher.  I have frequently told the story of President Garfield in his retirement being involved in an alumni organization from Williams College.

Mark Hopkins served as President of Williams from 1836 to 1872 and was recognized as one of the ablest teachers of his time. At some point the Williams administration was seeking funding for construction of some expensive modern college building, an absolute necessity for proper education. Garfield is reported to have said “The perfect college is a log with Mark Hopkins on one end and a willing student on the other”.

I certainly believe my most effective teaching was done in my office with a group of students seeking help with homework. Rather than walk them through the solution I would send one student to the blackboard and have him demonstrate his thought process, and comment on it so he would eventually find a solution. I don’t think there is an on-line equivalent for that.

It will be interesting to see if this experience will have an effect on elementary and secondary school education. Do we really need Taj Mahals if it is possible to handle much of the teaching remotely? I have long been an advocate to a return to neighborhood schools, linked electronically to specialty schools.

I wonder what the duration of my self-quarantine will be. According to my son John things are slowly returning to normal in China. His company, which is based in Beijing, has been operating, apparently effectively, on-line for the past month or so. He and his family are self-quarantined in California.

Elizabeth is particularly worried about the effect social distancing is having on low-income workers, like our favorite waiter in the University Club restaurant where we normally have lunch together once a week. It is difficult to work from home when one is a waiter.

A consequence of families self-sequestering could be a return to simple pleasures that have disappeared in our current society. Our children have fond memories of a cold winter week during the Oil Crisis in the mid-1970s when their schools were closed and we entertained them by reading “Lord of the Rings”.

One hopes society will learn from this crisis and make the necessary investment to make certain we are able to cope with crises like pandemics in the future.

Barbara Bush, the Matriarch Mach 12, 2020

Copyright © 2020                               John F. Oyler

March 12, 2020

Barbara Bush, the Matriarch

The Bridgeville Area Historical Society welcomed back one of its favorite speakers last month, Dr. John Aupperle. His subject this year was Barbara Bush, based on the recent biography “Matriarch”, by Susan Page.

Barbara Pierce was born in New York City in 1925 and reared in nearby Rye, New York. Her father was President of McCall Corporation, publisher of popular women’s magazines. If her future husband, George H. W. Bush, was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, her spoon was at least silver-plated.

Her mother and her older sister, Martha, were both slender fashion plates; in contrast Barbara was plump and dumpy, “the little fat girl” according to her mother. Apparently this feeling of inferiority stayed with her all her life.

She attended Ashley Hall, a distinguished girls’ preparatory school in Charlestown, South Carolina. In 1941while she was home for a vacation she met George H. W. Bush at a country club dance. He was a student at Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, an equally prestigious boys’ preparatory school.

They became engaged eighteen months later, when George went off to war as a pilot of a Navy torpedo bomber. When he returned in 1945 she dropped out of Smith College and they were married. Their marriage lasted seventy-three years until her death, a record for a President that has since been broken by Jimmy and Rosalyn Carter.

The newlyweds moved to New Haven, Connecticut, where George comfortably negotiated an accelerated program in economics and sociology at Yale in two and a half years, while playing first base in the first ever College World Series.  They then moved to Odessa, Texas, where he began a successful career in the oil industry.

Barbara was an extremely supportive wife in these years, as their family began to grow. The death of their three-year-old daughter, Robin, in 1953 was a terrible shock to both of them.  The five surviving children remember her as the glue that held the family together in their early years.

George’s father, Prescott Bush, served two terms as U. S. Senator from Connecticut, beginning in 1953. It was obvious that George would eventually enter politics on his own; in 1964 he lost a race for Senate representing Texas. He successfully was elected to Congress two years later.

A second run for the Senate in 1970 was also unsuccessful. As a consequence President Nixon appointed him Ambassador to the United Nations. A series of other high profile assignments followed – Chairman of the Republican Party, Head of the U. S Liaison Office in China, Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Vice President of the United States, and finally President.

Through all of this Barbara played the part of good wife and mother. She enjoyed their tour of duty in China and endured her role of “Second Lady of the United States”.  The contrast between her and Nancy Reagan was very obvious. This experience groomed her to be venerated as “America’s Grandmother” when her husband became President in 1988. The White House staff found her to be the friendliest and most easygoing occupant of the First Ladies the had served.

Her favorite cause was family literacy, culminating in the Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy, which currently supports 1,500 literacy programs across the nation. Other issues that had her enthusiastic support were abortion access, AIDS awareness, civil rights and LGBT issues.

Barbara accepted retirement in 1992 much better than did her husband. Both were eager to dismiss the Secret Service protection and to return to life as normal, albeit wealthy, citizens. She was shocked to realize that hadn’t cooked or driven an automobile for twelve years.

She received honorary doctorates from thirty-one colleges and universities, including her alma mater, Smith College, eleven more than her husband. When asked what her values were, she responded “Respect, dignity, and trust”. Her legacy is the fact that her name is synonymous with them.

The next Society program meeting is scheduled for 7:30 pm, Tuesday, March 11, 2020. Another favorite, Todd DePastino, will discuss “The American Way of Voting; A Wild History”, in the Chartiers Room of the Bridgeville Volunteer Fire Department.

Judge Henry Baldwin March 5, 2020

Copyright © 2020                               John F. Oyler

March 5, 2020

Judge Henry Baldwin

We have been aware of Judge Henry Baldwin’s illustrious career and his minor place in Bridgeville history for a number of years. We know that he built a summer home, Recreation, in what is now the Greenwood neighborhood in Bridgeville in the early 1800s, which he eventually sold to Moses Coulter in 1818.

We know that the eastern end of Station Street was originally a country lane leading from the Washington Pike to Recreation. We know that Coulter sold Recreation to the Walter Foster family in 1842. They in turn sold it to Dr. William Gilmore in 1879, who left it to his daughter, Capitola, when he died. She married Ulysses. L. Donaldson in 1888; the Donaldson family maintained it until it was demolished in the mid-1900s.

Our study of Pop Ferree’s workbooks documenting the early real estate transactions in the Bridgeville area have turned up information that suggests that Judge Baldwin played a much bigger role in the development of our community than we had realized. Consequently it is appropriate that we review his career and then discuss this role.

Henry Baldwin was born in New Haven, Connecticut, in 1780. He graduated from Yale at the age of seventeen and then read law at the Litchfield Law School for a year. In 1799 he moved to western Pennsylvania and was elected as the first district attorney for Crawford County.

By 1802 he was in Pittsburgh, combining a successful law practice with lucrative investments in the iron-making industry. Following the death of his wife Marina Baldwin married Sally Ellicott in 1805. Along with his associate, Walter Forward, and their close friend, Tarleton Bates, Baldwin was a member of “The Great Triumvirate”, a trio of three staunch “Constitutionalists” supporting Governor McKean.

 In 1805 they took control of “The Tree of Liberty”, Pittsburgh’s second newspaper, a Democratic-Republican organ established in opposition to John Scull’s “Weekly Gazette”, a publication with Federalist leanings.

Discord over McKean’s re-election campaign ultimately led to Bates’ death in a duel on January 8, 1806. It was the last duel to be fought in Pittsburgh; Bates’ death was a major shock for Baldwin. The site of the duel is the end of Bates Street, at the Monongahela River.

In 1816 Baldwin was elected to the United States House of Representatives, where he served for three terms. While in Congress he earned the gratitude of Andrew Jackson for defending Jackson’s unauthorized invasion of Spanish Florida in 1818. He then supported Jackson’s unsuccessful candidacy for the presidency in 1824 and his successful one four years later.

Jackson rewarded Baldwin’s loyalty by nominating him as Secretary of the Treasury. Strong opposition by Vice President John C. Calhoun, who feared Baldwin’s preference for tariffs, derailed that attempt. When Bushrod Washington died, Jackson appointed Baldwin as an Associate Judge of the United States Supreme Court in 1830. He served on the court until his death in 1844.

Baldwin’s years on the high court were significant. He is credited with initiating the practice of publishing dissenting opinions on non-unanimous verdicts. John Marshall was Chief Justice; it was his practice to render decisions with no explanation of the opposing arguments. Baldwin chose to publish independently the dissenting opinion, the permanent record of the other side of the debate.

Two of his dissents are cited in Wikipedia. In “Worcester vs Georgia”, 1832, he affirmed the right of the state (Georgia) to deny the sovereignty of the Cherokee Indians as a nation. Similarly, in “Groves vs. Slaughter”, 1841, he upheld the classification of slaves as “property”, a precedent later followed in the “Dred Scott” decision.

Baldwin died in 1844. His legacy is his published dissents and a remarkable document he wrote in 1837 in which he advocated a centrist position between the two extreme judicial factions, the strict interpreters of the Constitution and the evolutionary ones. One wishes he were on the high court today.

A remarkable entry in Pop Ferree’s workbook, on November 8, 1813, records the sale of 2023 acres of land in the Bridgeville area, by Presley Neville, to Henry Baldwin for $32,000. The land includes six major sites – Wingfield (588 acres), Reno (310 acres), Bower Hill (256 acres), Redman’s Place (265 acres), Sidgefield (404 acres), and Wheatfarm (200 acres).

Referring to the Allegheny County Warrantee Atlas gives us a good idea of what this encompassed. Wingfield was Alexander Fowler’s property on the east side of Chartiers Creek from Bridgeville south to Mayview (now known as Hastings). Reno is the Benjamin Rennoe warrant which covered most of Bridgeville northeast of Station Street. The other four occupy the southwest corner of Scott Township, bounded by Painter’s Run on the south and Scrubgrass on the north.

This is an impressive block of land for one man to own. Presley Neville was heavily involved in real estate in this area at the time although he had moved to Pittsburgh, where he served as Burgess from 1804 to 1805. He would have been the perfect person to organize such a transaction. He did indeed retain ownership of “Woodville” at that time.

Baldwin’s motives for such a move are a puzzle. Perhaps he was a land speculator or possibly a serious investor with ambitious plans for this area. The price he paid, $16.00 an acre, appears to be excessive; George Washington had sold his Miller’s Run property for $4.25 per acre twenty years earlier. Thirty-two thousand dollars in 1813 was a fortune, equivalent to five or six million dollars today.

At any rate the Greenwood neighborhood was part of the Rennoe warrant and we presume that 1813 is when Baldwin built Recreation. This was, of course, prior to his becoming a Congressman, a time when his primary occupation was that of an attorney.

On September 10, 1814, Baldwin paid Stephen Barlow $2,400 for three plots totaling 875 acres – “Reno Place”, “Dennison’s”, and “Wingfield”. We presume these were blocks of land that complemented his larger holdings. We suspect that “Dennison’s” applies to Dennison’s Run which may be the name of the tiny creek running down Cow Hollow to Chartiers Creek.

At any rate by this time Baldwin owned a continuous swath of land three miles long by one mile wide running all the way from Scrubgrass Run in Scott Township to Mayview in Upper St. Clair.

On July 15, 1816, Baldwin began to sell off land with a block of 396 acres going to James Sawyer for $8,000 (about $20 per acre for land he bought three years earlier for $16 per acre). This appears to be most of Wingfield, bounded on the north by the aforementioned Dennison’s Run. On the same date Mr. Sawyer sold the same property to John McKown for $8,700.

Baldwin was busy again on November 22, 1819. He traded a small plot to Moses Middlewarth for another small one, which then permitted him to sell a major block of land to Moses Coulter, 402 acres for $15,000 ($37 per acre!). Our concern that he paid too much for the land originally was unjustified. This transaction probably included Baldwin’s summer home, Recreation.

The next, and probably final, appearance of Henry Baldwin’s name in Pop Ferree’s workbook is dated November 19, 1827. It reports a sheriff’s sale of 1050 acres,

“lands and tenements of Henry Baldwin, late of Allegheny County, yeoman” to the Bank of the United States for $8,000. We can understand the necessity for a sheriff’s sale; the involvement of the federal bank is a puzzle.

Judge Baldwin was certainly a significant national figure in the early years of the nineteenth century. We were surprised to learn how significant he was in the early development of Bridgeville.